Ladies of Leisure? Why such heavy weather?

It's the first day of the school term, after a long, long, long seven week school holiday. While the children trudge schoolwards in shiny new shoes, sharpened pencils in pencilcase, expat mums queue at 755am, noses pressed against the glass of the posh caff which serves frothy cappuccinos, waiting for an 8am opening.

But the conversation isn't of handbags and designer dresses. It's pent up release for seven weeks of pressure cooker steam. Essential for my mental health. Important too for my mates.  Because attempting to live a somewhat ethical expat life is something done in community, something where the input from peers, gentle steers from wiser souls are profoundly helpful.

'Oh you and your staff and your life of luxury in Kenya. Why are you making such heavy weather of it'  say my UK mates.  But things here just aren't so clearcut. So what then at our first coffee of the term?

Employing people, creating employment, but without the safety net of a welfare state, or the boundaries of an office relationship, is the biggest source of stress.

The friend who is funding the stay & treatment in hospital of the child with severe organ damage of a part-time temporary member of staff.  How much can she stump up? But how can she say no? 
'And the staff member, the dad, he's only with us for a month. He doesn't say thank you. That isn't a reason to say no in a case like this. But it adds to the strain.'

The sacked employees (2), given generous payoffs at the start of the holidays, who have now returned to ask for more money as the impact of unemployment in a land without social security bites.  Tensions between good employment practice 'walk away to make a clear break' and putting yourself in another's shoes. 

One former employee for whom 7000 KSh/worth of employment ads had been put up over the key month when new arrivals seek new staff. With his payoff he took himself away on holiday up-country while potential employers were phoning him. Money gone, adverts gone, potential new employer interest gone, he texts his former employer for an additional handout for busfare back to Nairobi. 

Former employees for whom very expensive (several thousand dollars worth of) emergency medical treatment had been paid, who write threatening letters, even threatening letters to colleagues of the former employer.  Former employees,  for whom expensive (six hundred dollars worth of ) medical treatment had been paid - but which, money in hand, they then decide to be less urgent. Refusing reimbursement to employer, 'Its my money now',  they get employers who refuse to comply summonsed to the local police station.

Tales of the recent interview candidate who paused mid-interview, got up, opened and inspected the contents of a few of the interviewer's living room drawers, sat down again and resumed her answer to the question.

Of the new employees offered work to cover childcare for a employer's short term contract, who then text on the day of arrival: 'I'm not coming'.  Who then, when phoned, clarify:
'Oh I am coming for the job, but not today, in three days time.'  [Just as well I didn't start reinterviewing then.] 
Who then on D-Day Plus Three, don't arrive. But this time have their phone switched off to fend off any inconvenient calls.

Of jobseekers who have wept salt tears over friendly unrelated expats:
'Please find me work, today is my last day in the job, I'm desperate.' 
But who when phoned next day, offered busfare and invited for interview the following day to fill an urgent and ongoing need say,
'Well I can't come tomorrow. Or this week. I'll come next Wednesday maybe.'

It sounds a moaning litany. By UK standards some of these, surely, must be dredged up memories from far distant times. Retold, rehashed on each occasion. But far from it. These were the stories that burst forth, that had to be told, boiling jets of water from a geyser, boils to be lanced, steam under pressure, before any could calm down and drink coffee. 

We weren't many -  five at the table.  We aren't Little England jingoists, we strive to be open to the culture we're in, to adapt our ways within it. We aren't newcomers to this expat lark or newcomers to Kenya. Not freshfaced spring chickens, but grizzled women of the world.  Between us we had lived before in Albania, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Madagascar, South Africa, Germany, Belgium, Uganda, France and UK.  We know we are so fortunate by comparison with those we live next to. That's why the boundaries are so porous.  But not rolling in money, truly not. And these pressures are massive and the contortion considerable.

And Kenya confounds expectations. Ruptures boundaries. Lays waste the identity we thought we had, the way we believed we'd behave, the person we wanted to be, even once was.  And picking yourself up, putting yourself back together, refashioning a self that you might on occasion choose to take coffee with, well for that you need friends.